


Don't be a Drag

by sc010f



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, cross dressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:55:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sc010f/pseuds/sc010f
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not the most outlandish thing John's been asked to do by Sherlock. Which is saying a lot. It may be the most traumatic, however.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't be a Drag

"John, do you have any mascara?" Sherlock pokes his head in John's doorway as he is folding his laundry: shorts in neat squares, vests, socks rolled properly. He is in the act of sniffing dubiously at his oatmeal jumper – it still reeks of fried chicken – when Sherlock springs the question on him.

"What? No!" John drops the jumper to stare at his flatmate in something approaching wild surmise – although with Sherlock, it's hardly the least bizarre request he's ever been on the receiving end of. (Trying to maintain an erection and placing said erection in the head-in-the-fridge's eye socket maybe wins that prize, maybe.)

"Oh, too bad. I had thought you might." Sherlock frowns and drifts into John's room – pausing here and there to sniff at his hairbrush or examine his tea mug (John's second favorite, stored up here to avoid "accidents," it is emblazoned with "A Present from Brighton" and is a gift from John and Harry's dotty aunt Jane) for God knows what – and eventually stands much too close to John, carefully examining his eyes.

"No. Wait, why?" John would back away, but after all this time he's decided it's useless to try and convince Sherlock of the need for personal space.

"I heard about your drag show days from Murray, of course." Sherlock says it like it's the most natural thing in the world. John feels himself blushing and wishing that Murray hadn't come back from Afghanistan quite so intent on keeping in touch with him.

"Correction." John holds up his finger – a mistake, as Sherlock grabs his hand and sets to examining it carefully. "Are you looking for something? Anyway, it wasn't my _drag show **days**_. It was one night, for the Americans and their USO thank-you event, and I was drunk."

Sherlock drops John's hand and stalks away without a word.

"Oh, so you're disappointed in me now?" John demands half jokingly. "Besides," he can't help adding, "most drag queens wear false eyelashes!"

"No, I'm going to Boots. And why didn't I think of that? Of course! But if you're ironing, I say…" Sherlock pauses at the top of the stairs. "Would you mind too terribly trying to get the wrinkles out of the frock on my bed? Those synthetics are always so difficult. Especially with the sequins."

John stares at Sherlock's retreating form.

He is not going to go downstairs and look in Sherlock's bedroom.

He is simply not going to do that. With a great show of determination and strength, he fetches the ironing board and iron from the wardrobe.

John starts by attending to his shirts, carefully pressing the collar straight and then the cuffs. He gets halfway through the fiddly bits on the sleeves before he sets the iron down with a frustrated "thud" and stalks downstairs.

There, indeed, laid out on Sherlock's bed, is a nightmare in purple and sequins.

John closes his eyes and counts to twelve. He opens them again and notices that the purple nightmare of a dress is still there. Lying next to it is a red wig. Beside the bed, he also notices, are sparkly red high-heeled boots.

But the most disturbing thing of all is the navy blue feathered and sequined monstrosity of an evening gown (plus a gigantic blonde wig) lying not-so-innocently beside the purple nightmare.

John really, _really_ doesn't want to know why there are two dresses on Sherlock's bed.

Really, he doesn't.

Because he has a terrible suspicion.

He hopes that he's man enough to say "no." He hopes even more fervently that when the time comes, he'll not have to wear the dress with the peacock feathers.

* * *

John is wrong (or right, depending on how you view it) about both things. He fails miserably at saying "no," and he ends up in the dress with the peacock feathers. At least _that_ dress comes with silver sequined shoes.

The club they are going to is in a dismal-looking building with the name emblazoned across the front of it in horrid, gothic-looking script: _The Jammy Dodger_.

John's sure it's meant to be some kind of double entendre, but he's not brave enough to ask Sherlock what it means.

It's bad enough being dragged into support tights by Sherlock and then having the scenario explained to him in the cab (with the driver doubtlessly earwigging the whole time), but did they really, John wonders as he struggles to attach his false eyelashes without blinding himself, need to go undercover for this?

He pokes himself in the eye for the fourth time and decides that Sherlock has obviously been watching too many crime dramas on television.

"Are my seams straight?" Sherlock asks, ghosting up behind him. If one can actually move silently and smoothly in sparkly red boots with four-inch heels. Turns out, Sherlock can. He spins slightly and presents John with his backside.

"The seams, John."

John jerks his gaze downward. In his experience, drag queens (real ones, not the type he and Murray had imitated all those years ago) were usually voluptuous and curvy. Sherlock is neither of those things. But really, the lift that those heels give to his arse and hips is more than a little distracting.

John swears that he did not have a cross-dressing kink before he walked into the _Jammy Dodger_. He thinks he may have one by the time he walks out, however, if he doesn't already.

The seams on Sherlock's tights, for what it is worth, are straight.

"Yes," John mutters, and turns back to the mirror to continue his battle with the eyelashes.

"Let me help you," Sherlock says, leaning in and gently turning John's face to him. "False eyelashes can be…tricky."

There is no way in hell that John is getting turned on by this – by Sherlock's proximity (he once woke to Sherlock plucking his _eyebrows_ ), by the gentle pressure of Sherlock's hand on his chin, by the warm huff of breath on his cheek. Nope. No way at all.

"There," Sherlock whispers. "Got it. Now. Here's the words, in case you need them."

"The words?"

"Yes, John, the words. You're the act following Madam Lulina."

"ACT? I thought you said I was going to just be mingling with the crowd, looking for suspects!" John begins to splutter. He grips the aerosol can of hairspray like a weapon and totters to his feet, praying the stiletto heels don’t give out on him.

"Yes, that was the plan, but the plan has changed," Sherlock hisses in John's ear as John topples forward (conveniently) into Sherlock's arms. "I don't have time to explain now, but I need you to sing this. It's my belief that Madam Maxime was murdered by someone she knew. Someone who works _here_. All I need is a diversion."

"You mean, me."

"Excellently deduced, John."

"Fuck off. Why can't _you_ do this?"

"Because, John," Sherlock says with a "why are people so simple, see how I'm being so patient" sigh. "I have to _mingle_ in order to let Lestrade and his men in."

"I thought I was supposed to be mingling!" John shouts as Sherlock pats him on the cheek and spins away in a flash of purple and sequins. "This had better not end up like the time you made me take that figure drawing class!"

John sinks back into his makeup chair, the chaos of backstage surging around him. He looks at the crumpled paper that Sherlock had shoved into his hand.

"Oh, no," he whispers in tones of deepest tragedy. "No, no, no…"

* * *

It is John's worst nightmare. Worse, probably, than getting shot. If anything should have given him PTSD, this would be it.

He is standing in a navy blue, peacock-feathered evening gown and sparkly silver heels, goggling out into the blinding lights while an all-too-familiar drum introduction crashes around him over the sound system.

It's a song he knows by heart, although he'd never admit it to Sherlock. It's a song he howled along to many times in his youth, mulletted and drunk and weaving back and forth amidst a fug of cigarette and pot smoke.

Dimly, in the back of the room, he sees Sherlock (how is the man so damn graceful in those heels), talking to the bartender. He caresses the man's hand, and John feels a surge of jealousy. He takes a deep breath and opens his mouth:

  
_I gotta take a little time…_   


The words flow, the music moves through him. He lifts his head and…

  
_I wanna know what love is!_   


John throws his head back to catch the high note. As he does so, he catches a glimpse of Donovan holding up her mobile phone with a broad smile on her face.

He would worry, but he's too much in the moment to care.

The applause, even to his ears, is thunderous, and he manages to remember to curtsey (awkwardly) before toddling off the stage, peacock feathers waving. He's walking on air, exhilarated and thrilled.

He completely misses the commotion on the side stage and walks straight into the fracas. Lestrade and Sherlock are struggling to subdue a huge man in a leopard print pantsuit with even heavier makeup, while Donovan darts about the fringes of the fight brandishing handcuffs. When John trips off the bottom step, he careens into the man, causing Lestrade to fall to one side. The man grabs John, but before he can do anything, another drag queen dashes forward with the pole upon which they hang their frocks and clips John soundly around the ears.

John falls like the mighty oak (if mighty oaks wore navy blue and feathers, with sparkly shoes) and Lestrade and Sherlock's target freezes long enough to be subdued by the policeman and the consulting detective.

As he is unconscious, John misses the rest of the evening – which is probably a good thing, although perhaps not, he'll come to think, when he finds that Sherlock has hacked into his blog to write up the affair ("The Affair of the Killer Queen") and included a scathing review of John's performance and pictures – not only of him on stage, but also a stupendous action shot of John being walloped by the heavy pole. John will be very cross _then_. Especially when Murray calls to congratulate him on his new career and Sarah inquires if he is still interested in locum work at the surgery.

But at the present moment, John is coming to in the back of an ambulance, with Sherlock holding his hand and staring intently at him.

"Whu-" says John intelligently.

"You've been hit over the head with a pole," Sherlock explains. Or one of the Sherlocks explains – suddenly there seem to be two of them. "But what you did… that thing… was… good."

John manages to smile at one (or both) of the Sherlocks. The last time the Sherlocks said that, they'd nearly been blown to pieces by Moriarty. And, concussed and loopy as he might be (and still dressed in navy and feathers, with sparkly shoes), John can translate the subtext, and he tightens his hand around one of the Sherlocks'.

The Sherlocks really are quite pretty, John thinks, without the wigs and the dresses and the boots. Although he'd like, he thinks, for them to keep the boots on for a bit. Just to see what they would do to their arses and hips if they were wearing only black y-fronts, or, even better, nothing else at all.

It occurs to John at that point, as he is informing the Sherlocks of his wish, that he may be rather seriously injured. Possibly even concussed. The thought vanishes from his mind, however, when the Sherlocks smile and, in a feat of physics that defies John's addled mind, bend down to kiss him.

* * *

It is three weeks later, and John has finally finished being cross with Sherlock regarding the whole incident. Mostly because as he comes home from the surgery that day, he finds that Sherlock has already brought in Chinese food and has set up the table quite nicely (or what passes for nicely with Sherlock – seeing as the skull has daisies sticking out of its eye sockets).

"What's all this in aid of?" John asks, suspiciously.

"Dinner," says Sherlock, not rising from his spot at the table. John notices he's bundled into his greatcoat, even though the temperature of the flat isn't exactly chilly. "And I have been told that when one has something important to ask another person, it is, erm… good to feed them dinner. First."

"All right," says John, still uncured of his suspicion. "What did you want to ask me?"

"Don't you want to eat first?"

"No."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Well…" Sherlock shifts. "It'll be better if you eat first."

"Sherlock…"

"Okay, _fine_. That night, the night at the erm… club."

"Yes."

"Where you sang that… song."

"Yes."

"Afterwards, when you were in the ambulance. You mentioned that you wanted to see me in the boots again, and very little else."

John is blushing furiously.

"And your question is?" he asks.

"Do you still want to?"

There are a few things John thinks of in that moment: the first, that Sherlock is taking the piss. The second, that he's dreaming. The third, that he has been transported to an alternate dimension. The fourth, that Sherlock might be serious.

The third option seems the most logical to John. Especially when Sherlock stands up and drops his greatcoat like some bloody flasher.

Sherlock is wearing the sparkly red boots and rather tiny, insignificant pants.

John also notices that Sherlock seems to be exhibiting some sort of sexual arousal.

Definitely the third option, he decides.

"Well?" Sherlock asks, and spins to display a gorgeously long set of legs and an unfairly beautiful arse. "What do you think? We can always eat after we fuck; it's entirely up to you."

If it's not the third option – and John hasn't been rocketed into some sort of alternate dimension – it may be the most bizarrely lucky night of John's life.

Sherlock spins again and glides over to John.

He bends and kisses him, hard. Demanding. John moans and finally drops the carrier bags filled with groceries that he's been carrying and totally forgotten about. Sherlock takes advantage and slides his tongue into John's mouth, caressing, teasing. It is, by far, the sexiest snog John's ever had.

Sherlock breaks the kiss and stares into John's eyes in a manner that, if John were a worse writer, he'd call "fathomless."

"Want to see some more?" Sherlock asks.

And really, there's only one possible answer John can give (right?).

"Oh, God, yes."

**Author's Note:**

> Not mine, no money. A million thanks to Bluey for the beta!


End file.
